


She needed a hero so that's what she became

by WhoCaresAboutANameAnyway



Category: Daredevil (TV), Marvel (Comics)
Genre: Gen, alternative universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-01
Updated: 2016-06-08
Packaged: 2018-04-12 09:55:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,886
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4474946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhoCaresAboutANameAnyway/pseuds/WhoCaresAboutANameAnyway
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What if Karen Page had an even darker past? Then she'd have handled things differently.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

"I thought... maybe you weren't coming out of it... That would have been a shame." She tried to stand but the drugs made her clumsy and he caught her easily, stabilizing her in a fake act of kindness. "You might want to take a moment. In the meantime, I... I thought we could chat." Her head lolled to the side and seemed to take into her surroundings. She shook her head apparently trying to clear it, while her unfocused look landed on him.

"You're actually doing this? Again?" Her voice wavered, but there was an edge in it that told Wesley that her bravado wasn't fake. Or he could just be projecting, after having spent so much time in Mr. Fisk's company. "Either your very confident... Or very stupid."

"If you're talking about your friend, the man in the mask, you should know that he won't be an obstacle for much longer." She straightened her back and looked at him with a neutral expression that eerily reminded him of his early days with Mr. Fisk. But then she rubbed her eyes and shook her head again trying to clear her muddled thoughts and the resemblance stopped, Mr. Fisk never looked like a lost child, like she did. Though it wasn't as if that'd would save her, he never liked children anyway. "You know, funny story, after the Union Allied article, I... inquired background information about you. Do you know what I found?" Her lips trembled. "A plain countryside girl with a tale of woe about her dead brother. See? the thing is... You made that story too boring, too simple to be true. We've seen what you're capable of so far..." He sighed looking at her with fake pity, and she must have been coming out of the drugs still, because her face gave nothing away, there was a dead look in her eyes, so he continued. "The funny thing is that just when I started to investigate you, SHIELD's leaked files disappeared again. Like they were never there." He made a dramatic pause, and the hands of the blonde trembled, she looked down at the table for a few moments and then brought her eyes up to his.

"Curious thing indeed." The woman answered, going along, with a devil may care tone. There was so much of Mr. Fisk in her, thought Wesley. He has seen that look countless of time in Mr. Fisk's face, a blank mask, devoided of emotions that hid a blistering rage. But right now she was a kitten acting like a panther, and he was the hunter.

"So I spent a small fortune trying to buy your secrets out." At this, the blonde lowered her head, and her hair obscured her features. "After all, everybody has a price. You want to know what I found, Miss Page?" Her shoulders started to shake, and he smiled again. "A million dollars, and all I found was an old, almost washed out pamphlet. Oh, but it was worth it. So worth it." She raised her head again and arched an eyebrow slowly, blinking calmly, like indulging him into telling her a tale. Maybe she really was panther, but he was still holding the hilt of the knife. "The pamphlet was too worn out, but you could still recognize a pretty ballerina in it. The best of Moscow, it said. Now, I can't help but wonder, what kind of dancer were you?"

Karen looked at him dead in the eye and smirked relaxing her stance and reclining back against the chair. Now that he was watching more closely he could see that she was trembling, yes, but not from fear, from tension. She was right where she wanted to be, that was just her body betraying her. Just like Mr. Fisk. But he has been handling Mr. Fisk for years. Her fingers twitched minutely against the table and she licked her lips, and Wesley imagined that she'd have killed for a cigarette in that moment.

"Oh, you've gotten all wrong. I'm not haunted by my past," the wording of that sentence did not go over his head, no one was chasing her. "It is you, Mr. Wesley, who should be afraid of it." The man startled, and looked at her. She shouldn't have known that name, but Miss Page continued. "It is ironic of me to say this, but it is all a little bit less sordid of what you're imagining." Miss Page said with a wary smile, too nice to be real. It looked like as if she'd have practiced it in the mirror thousands of times until she got it right. But maybe he was just projecting, because she was nothing like Mr. Fisk. Not at all. Miss Page was something else altogether, she didn't have cracks in her armor like Fisk had, she was cold rage, she measured every breath, and calculated every step, unlike Fisk, who let all that fire control him. "I was one of the twenty eight young ballerinas with the Bolshoi. Do you know what that means?" Of course he knew what that meant, the Red Room was well known in the circles he moved. Wesley's been working enough years for Mr. Fisk to wish he didn't bring the gun that he's hiding under his jacket. "Now Mr. Wesley... James. You have three options. Option one, you take the easy way out, option two we fight or option three, you run." That night only one gunshot was fired, and Karen Page walked away with her hands clean and her ledger red.


	2. Chapter 2

“Who trained you?” Karen turned around in her heels, looking at him with wild eyes and her hands clutching her heart. He was sitting on her sofa, facing her calmly holding his gun loosely in his hand, with a finger on the trigger, pointing at the floor, for the moment.

“W-what? How… How did you entered…? I mean, what...?” She was good, if he were a different man he'd have dropped the gun, and he'd have soothed like a spooked animal telling her that she was safe, that he meant no harm, just wanted to talk, while she'd let herself break down clutching him like a lifeline. But he was not that kind man and she was not that kind of woman.

“Karen.” He said in the same authoritative tone he used with his little boy when he misbehaved, dropping his shoulders. He was so tired. She must have been too, because she dropped her act immediately. She lost that terrified look, and the tight lines around her mouth disappeared. She closed the door, locking the bolt and went to one of her kitchen cabinets. She grabbed a bottle of whiskey and one glass, and brought it over the coffee table. She slumped in the chair that was directly across from him in an unladylike movement, which was the most genuine thing he has seen her do so far. She filled the glass and chunked down half of it, then she passed the entire bottle to him.

“What gave me away?”

“Your smile. You smile like those who have been through hell and back. Too nice to be real. My wife… She," he stumbled over words, it still hurt him to talk about her. He didn't want to stop hurting. “She said that to me once.” She nodded to herself and downed the last of the liquid in her glass. “And your eyes, you look haunted, but not hopeless. Never hopeless, you know every exit of a room with just one look, don't you?” She looked at him, impassively, and he asked again. "Who trained you?"

“Have you heard about the Red Room, Frank?” He nodded. When he learnt about them he spent every night for a week sleeping in the rocking chair at the foot of his little girl’s bed. Convinced that someone was gonna take her away and make her into… Into someone like the woman who was in front of him. “They didn't just trained me, they... They _raised_ me.”

“Does someone else know?” She took the bottle away from him and poured herself another glass.

“He's not a problem anymore.” She downed it in one goal this time, looking at him straight in the eye. It was just a fact, said in a devil may care tone, but he heard the warning nonetheless. Who would he told anyway? “You need my help.” It wasn't a question.

“I can't ask you.”

“You're not.” And she searched in the left pocket of her coat for a pen drive and threw it to him. He looked at it for a long time, and only looked up when she passed the bottle to him again. “You don't wanna go down that road. When you're ready I’ll help you to burn them to the ground.”

“Why?”

“I was told I had a little brother. He was nine. Just like your kid. The Red Room does not encourage family ties or connections. I wanna believe they killed him. It'd have been kinder if they did.” He nodded, pouring her a generous glass this time.

“I’ll have Nelson's six. If something ever happens.” It was the only thing he could give her in return, and it was the first time he saw her smile genuinely, and it was awful. It had too many teeth and it was too wide, unflattering, and a bit scary. She has never been so beautiful.

“Not Matt's?”

“Murdock? You know he's not the kind you protect. He's the kind you run away from.”

“He's at war now. He should be fine, at home.”

“Just like us.”

“No, not like you.” She shaked her head vehemently, foregoing the glass this time and taking a long sip from the bottle. He tasted her lipstick after taking the whiskey from her hand. She was so unlike his wife, he could be just as harsh as he wanted, knowing that he couldn't break her. “Matt and I… We, we were born into this… But they made you what you're now. They should pay.”

No, that wasn't right. He could break her. Right there, in that moment. BUt only because she'd let him, he could see that in the weary slump of her shoulders. She could end his misery, with just her bare hands, he hated her just a moment for not doing it. They looked at each other for a long time. Assessing, judging, pitying the other.

“There's gonna be an ambush in about three minutes.”

“I know, I'm gonna lose the deposit.” He barked a laugh at the absurd of that. It was such a tiny, worthless thing to worry about. She flashed him a wild smile and got her hand out of her pocket, which had a gun attached to it. He shook his head, and the corner of his mouth went up.

“Ready?” And the shooting began. That night Karen Page cleaned a bit her ledger by adding a new coat of red in it. That night it was just the beginning of Frank Castle's revenge.


	3. Chapter 3

“I remember you.” The blonde looked up startled from where she was hunched some documents over her desk. Her eyes widened and her eyebrows were slightly up.

“W-what? How did you get in here?” She tensed, drawing back her shoulders against the back of the chair and her hand gripped the edge of the table. Normal people would have mistook that as fear, Elektra knew that she was preparing herself for a fight.

“Oh, you knew I was here all along, but you're curious, that's why you didn't shoot me with the 38 that's taped under your desk. I want answers.”

“Get out of here.” Her eyes lost the fear and her mouth became a tight line.

“Or what? You'll call the cops?” Miss Paige smiled and stood up slowly, approaching her with calculated steps, and stopped in front of her.

“No, get out of my sight before I make you leave, Miss Natchios.” She startled Elektra, but she masked it with derision.

“Oh, aren't you full of surprises, Miss Paige?”

“You have a five minutes to leave before you come into the range of Matt’s hearing.” The brunette just arched an eyebrow, unconcerned. “If he catches you threatening me, do you think he will be willing to let you kidnap him to go running to more of your little missions for the The Hand?”

“How did…?!”

“Ah, yeah, answers. That's why you came here, or so you've said. But why would I put my cards on the table just yet?” Elektra uncrossed her arms, let them fall on her sides, mimicking Miss Paige's posture, ready to give the first blow.

“This is a game of chess Miss Paige, and until now you've just been a pawn in it.” She laughed, and the sounds that she made were truly awful, too harsh and cruel, and for the first time Elektra felt a spark of fear.

“Oh, but Miss Natchios, I am not a pawn. I’m the hand that moves all the pieces. And do you want to know why? Because I don't care at all about what's at stake, that's what makes me dangerous.” Her resemblance with Stick was uncanny, while terrifying, she could learn so much of her. But unlike Stick, Miss Paige wasn't looking for students or soldiers.

“What do you want?”

“It's you who came in here demanding answers.”

“Everybody wants something.” Miss Paige just smiled, showing her sharp teeth. “I remember you. I saw you once, when you were a girl. You were covered in blood and your knuckles were purple.” She just stares impassively at Elektra, assessing her. "And then we fought.“

“I scare you because I don't take sides.” If Elektra weren't who she was, she'd have flinched, she masked her fear with anger, just like every other human being.

“I could have killed you with just a flicker of my wrist.” Her sai was in the back of her jeans, pressing against the small of her back, and her hand was itching to touch it. If Miss Paige’s arch of eyebrows was anything to go by, she knew it as well.

“You could have tried.” Miss Paige smiled again, her teeth were slightly smeared with her red lipstick, which made it seem like she was giving Elektra a bloody smile. She needed to get out of there.

She turned to leave through the window when Miss Paige clutched her wrist. “I remember the day Stick brought you in, that afternoon I broke your nose and you broke my arm. But everyone hated you before you even set a foot in there, ever wonder why?” Elektra looked at her for a long time, she remember with vividly detail that afternoon, it was the first time someone draw that much blood out of her.

“I never saw you ever again, why?”

“Sorry Mrs. Badeaux, but as I've told you Mr. Murdock is not here, so if you'd kindly leave…” Her time was up, and Miss Paige shouldn't have known that name. She was too good. She didn't need Mathew’s gift to know that he was running the stairs up, to try to stop his worlds from colliding. She sidestepped Miss Paige and went to her desk, where she wrote in a post-it her something that'd let her live a couple of days if she was lucky. She turned her back on Miss Paige, and her handwriting wavered slightly, because of her trembling hand. Elektra gave her the note, and Miss Paige read it and flashed her bloody smile, while nodding faintly. Neither of them startled when Matthew bustled through the door.

“Oh, hey Karen, are you here? What are…?” They were in a room, full of people who knew each other’s secrets, but acted like strangers, like people who pretended that their hands weren't red, who pretended they could have a life.

“Ah, Matt, I was just leaving, but Mrs. Badeaux was quite insistent on seeing you.” She said bitterly while maintaining her bloody smile, just for Elektra to see. “If you excuse me, I’ll just… I'll go.” And she picked her bag up from the table and just ignored Mathew’s half hearted attempts to stop her.

Once she was two blocks away, and trusting Elektra to keep Matt busy, she called Frank Castle. “I know who is Blacksmith.” She said holding her phone between her ear and shoulder, while she teared the post-it with the address. “I’ll meet you in an hour in Colonel Schoonover’s house. Come ready.” She pocketed again the shreds and took the phone into her hand. “I told you you wouldn't want to go down this road. I can handle it if you want.” After a few seconds of silence he answered again.

“See you in an hour.”

That night Frank Castle became something else. That night Elektra Natchios experimented mercy from the first person who beat her, and she discovered that she disliked it immensely. Elektra promised to herself that she will never have mercy on anyone. That night Matt Murdock accepted that he had to stop lying to himself, that he had to choose, he couldn't live those two lives. That night Karen Paige remembered that she was very good at what they trained her to do.


End file.
